EXCLUSIVE: Bigbelly Prepares to Launch Smart Composting Bins

Sustainability innovator and “smart city” leader Bigbelly is preparing to launch its composting program after a successful smart compost program in New York City. In its latest move, Bigbelly continues to provide cities with tools to keep them as beautiful and sustainable as possible.

WasteExpo is just a few short days away and teams are putting the final touches on their setups to showcase new projects and innovations. Ahead of the show, I spoke with Jeff Satwicz, Vice President of Product Strategy & Engineering, at Bigbelly to discuss the company’s latest innovation: its smart composting bins. Satwicz has been with Bigbelly since the company began in 2003 and has seen it go through amazing growth to get to where it is now. Now, 21 years later, Satwicz is as excited as ever for the company’s next big innovation.

For Bigbelly, WasteExpo will be a chance to talk and educate expo-goers on its new composting bins. Bigbelly’s composting smart bins have already been placed throughout New York City, with about 400 bins serving the area, and the company is excited to bring the bins to a broader area.

“We think our story on smart compost is, taking some of our skill sets and capabilities on smart bins and software for managing [materials] and try to apply 21st-century technology to the problem, ‘how do we get better food waste collection?’” said Satwicz.

“There’s about a 70 million household gap between the people that have access to recycling and the people that have access to food waste collection. That’s a massive divide to close.”

Bigbelly’s composting bins work to close that gap. The new smart bins look to be set up in residential areas and compounds to help make proper food waste disposal quick and easy. Currently, and for the initial smart compost program, the smart compost bins from Bigbelly set up in New York City are community-based, bringing that ease of access right to those who need and can benefit from composting programs right away.

Composting carries several pain points for cities. Open-top compost bins lead to ground litter, odors, and visible waste in a public space. Organic waste is also an open invitation to pests like rats, birds, and bugs. Other issues include long periods of time between composting pick-ups, a non-uniform approach to composting infrastructure or lack thereof, and the inability to measure collection volume and diversion rates with standard collections. Bigbelly’s new composting bins are a one-stop-shop to address each of the issues and eliminate worry from cities.

The composting bins from Bigbelly are designed to eliminate visible waste, ground litter, and odors and deny pests access to organic waste. The bins separate the public from their organic waste, keeping a clean environment. Bigbelly’s technology is worked into the composting bins, which sends collection notifications to prevent waste overflows. Data is collected by each bin to report to cities the volume of organic waste collected and report on organic waste diversion, helping cities track progress toward sustainability goals.

Although, the biggest challenge with composting and separating organic waste for residents is that they aren’t used to doing it and have no means to do it easily and conveniently. Bigbelly is looking to fix that.

“It’s a really small segment of the population that’s participating [in composting] right now. And, as we’ve learned about our customers and their needs, there’s a big educational challenge, and community engagement and people’s involvement are a challenge that needs to be solved,” said Satwicz.

“Bigbelly is making that easy transition for people to get rid of food waste and turn it into the next step. We’re hoping to do our job to help with the collection part of it.”

Satwicz will be speaking at WasteExpo during the Food Scrap Collection Strategies and Programs for Residential, Multifamily, Grocery Stores, and Haulers panel. There he will be talking about what Bigbelly’s smart composting program is, sharing information about its smart compost program.